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Dessert

Canary Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, baking powder, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Canary Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until thick and smooth.

  2. Add each egg separately, beating well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the flour and baking powder lightly.

  4. Gradually add milk until the mixture drops readily from the spoon.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour into a well-buttered mold and steam for about 1 hour.

  2. Serve with jam or custard sauce.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, setting the crumb as the pudding cooks.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, creamed with butter, helps trap air for a lighter texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pudding rise.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a soft, pourable consistency.

The step that matters

Adding the milk. Milk should be added gradually until the batter drops readily from the spoon. Too little leaves the pudding dense and heavy, while too much makes it loose and wet, so the texture ends up uneven.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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